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When a friend returned Tabor College student Hannah Funk’s Bible to her May 9, it instantly sparked confusion.

The Bible had been locked in a car.

“My roommate had found my Bible that someone handed in to the cafeteria,” she said. “When she brought it back to me I was like, ‘Why is my Bible there?’ I always leave it in the same spot behind my seat.”

Funk and her friend instantly went to check on her car, and they discovered it wasn’t where she parked it in the Tabor’s girl’s parking lot.

“At first we rode everywhere looking for it,” she said, “through all the parking lots and even out to Dollar General, and it was gone.”

Funk called her parents and the Hillsboro Police Department and she wrote up a report on the stolen vehicle.

“I feel like I went through the five stages of grief or something,” she said. “I cried for the first two hours, and then became jittery and angry. I just felt really violated, I worked really hard for that car.”

Funk said she bought the car during the summer of 2015 from a family friend after working at the local grocery store to save money.

Funk turned to prayer and social media as she anxiously wondered what would become of her beloved Mustang.

Shortly after midnight Saturday, she received a call that her car had been found in south Wichita.

“The previous owner of the car is a family friend and she posted it on her Facebook page,” she said. “One of her friends in Wichita found it and followed it around and they were able to pinpoint the neighborhood.”

Funk said when police found the car there was an interesting surprise inside. “They found a guy passed out in the passenger seat,” she said. “They did arrest him but he said he wasn’t the thief. My car was out of gas, so we think that’s why he stopped driving.”

According to Funk, there were several unusual items left behind.

“All my personal items, except for my Bible that they must have thrown out, were gone,” she said. “But I did find a frying pan, lamp shade, lawnmower parts, and a suitcase filled with dirty clothes.”

The thief also left a couple of what could be considered parting gifts.

“They drew a picture on my dash with Sharpie,” she said. “And left a cigar on my dash. There was some exterior damage too. They must have sideswiped some stuff, there were scratches on the outside, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

Hillsboro assistant chief Jessey Hiebert said Monday that the theft is an isolated incident.

“It’s the first stolen car out of Tabor’s parking lot this year,” he said. “This doesn’t happen frequently.”

Funk said while she originally was more upset after discovering the damage to her car and absence of her personal belongings, her boyfriend shed positive light onto the situation.

“He just said ‘it might hurt and it may feel bad, but you got it back in two days and it’s drivable, that’s rare. It may not feel as much your car anymore but it’s still in good condition and it could be a totally different story,”’ she said.

Funk said her boyfriend’s kind words sparked a notion of appreciation, and is thankful for the support of so many people.

“Without God and Facebook, I probably would have never gotten my car back,” she said.